On behalf of all Americans, I extend my warmest greetings to the people of Wales as they observe St. David's Day on March 1. The Welsh have made innumerable contributions to America's history and to the development of the United States. Our own democracy s indebted to the eleven U.S. presidents who proudly claimed Welsh heritage, as did sixteen American patriots who signed the Declaration of Independence. American education owes a debt to the Welsh founders of Harvard and Yale Universities; American arts to Harriet Beecher Stowe, Frank Lloyd Wright, Sinclair Lewis, and D.W. Griffith.

The close bonds connecting America and Wales continue into the present day. They are evident in our own capital, where a stone on the Washington Monument stairway bears the inscription, "Cymryu Am Byth!" -- "Wales Forever!" On behalf of all American people, I echo this exclamation of pride and wish all the people of Wales a happy St. David's Day.

Hey! Somebody explain to this ignorant girl, partially of Welsh descent, exactly what is St. David's Day? That didn't get passed down in our family traditions.

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Compassion is the sometimes fatal capacity for feeling what it is like inside somebody else's skin. It is the knowledge that there can never really be any peace and joy for me until there is peace and joy finally for you too. - Frederick Buechner

If society prospers at the expense of the intangibles,how can it be called progress?